Barbara Reddick went to the firehall in Margaree Forks, N.S., on Thursday afternoon expecting a big novelty cheque for $1.2 million. Her nephew, Tyrone MacInnis, went there too, expecting the same. In the parking lot, she says, she asked the 19-year-old to sit in her car with her. She wanted him to look her in the eye and tell the truth, or what she believes to be the truth, that she never promised to split her winnings with him.

But MacInnis, and his parents, insisted he was entitled to half, Reddick says. So on Thursday, after posing for photos with the big cheque, the feud between an aunt and her nephew erupted in a painfully public way, with Reddick vowing to sue the teenager in front of a pack of news cameras.

“I’m taking him to court. It was my ticket,” she shouted. “Now he’s trying to lie and say I said split.”

People go crazy when it comes to money

According to Reddick, she sent MacInnis $100 via email transfer to buy her tickets for the Chase the Ace draw, a fundraiser for two volunteer fire departments in Margaree. She said she told him to put his name on the ticket, beside hers, only for luck, not because they planned on splitting any winnings. They’d been through this routine before with a weekly 50/50 draw in Glace Bay, and, Reddick says, there seemed to be some magic in Tyrone’s name.

“He’s always lucky with his draws, right?” said Reddick, a 57-year-old retired military supply tech. “I said ‘Well, put your name on the ticket and you’ll be my good luck charm.’”

On Wednesday night, their ticket won the draw. In chase the ace — a growing phenomenon in the Maritimes — the winning ticket holder gets a cut of the nights’ tickets sales, but more importantly they get a chance at the jackpot. All they have to do is pull the ace of spades from a deck. If they don’t, the deck gets smaller, the jackpot gets bigger and the draw continues for another week. On Wednesday — after 50 weeks of no one pulling the ace — there were two cards left with a jackpot of $1.2 million. Since neither Barb nor Tyrone was at the firehall in Magaree Forks, a volunteer pulled their card for them. It was the ace.

Barb got a call at home in Guysborough with news that she and Tyrone had won.

“I said, ‘No I won! It was my ticket.’ ”

On Thursday, Barb said she asked Tyrone how much money he was expecting from the jackpot. Tyrone, she said, expected to split the pot. His parents got involved, saying Tyrone’s name was on the ticket and he was entitled to half, according to Reddick.

“I would have given him $150,000,” she said. “Listen, Tyrone was the son that I never had. Me and Tyrone — ask anybody — we’re very very close.”

“Tyrone is getting nothing from me,” she said. “It’s just for the principle. We were so close. He broke my heart. He broke it. … People go crazy when it comes to money.”

It wasn't pretty

Reddick went into the hall and stood beside her nephew, holding the novelty cheque for the assembled news cameras. Bernice Curley, the organizer, handed each a cheque for $611,319.

“It wasn’t pretty,” Curley said after.

The cheque for only half caught Reddick off guard. Then, she said, the reporters started asking questions. “Buddy said, ‘how do you feel?’ ” And Reddick started ranting about getting a lawyer and taking the young man to court. She looked at her brother — MacInnis’ father — and accused him of just wanting a new truck out of the whole thing. The father was escorted out of the hall, shouting to the reporters, asking them to keep his young son’s name out of the news. He declined to comment to the National Post afterward. “Respect my privacy please,” he said. His son, MacInnis, did not respond to messages and calls.

With their silence, it’s tough to tell what exactly happened between the aunt and the nephew she claimed to be more like a son. What is clear, from video of the cheque ceremony posted by both CBC and CTV, is that a relationship was broken by the hazards of the jackpot, not in a slow, fraying way, but instantly, and on television.

“I’ll never speak to him,” Reddick said, “in this lifetime or the next.”

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